I remember first hearing this story in Sunday School class as ayoung lad. My Sunday School teacher had just delivered a beautifulstory to us about forgiveness, and was now speaking of theimportance of forgiveness in our lives. Forgiveness for oursiblings, for our playmates, even for our parents when he becamedistracted by my doodling with a pencil and paper and asked me whatI was doing. I told him I was figuring out how much seventy timesseven was. He merely answered, "Once you have figured it out, whatdifference will it make?" "I will know how many times I have toforgive somebody", I replied a bit squeamishly. By now he was a bit"put out" with my lack of attentiveness, and retorted, "Son, ifthat's all you got out of it, you've missed the point".

I guess a good many of us "have" missed the point. We have cast aspell of loneliness, and bitterness and utter misery on ourselves aswell as others ... all because we couldn't or wouldn't forgive.Forgiveness is a blessing, a grace; which is not something most ofus have developed. Maybe it's because we hoped we would never haveto use it. Yet when the time comes that we need that "grace" toforgive - we won't be able to, because we won't know how.

Psalm 30:2 O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.Caleb is having another surgery today to put another shunt in his head to relieve the pressure on his brain. Please remember him all day today. The surgery is very difficult because they have to run the tube from his head into his belly to drain.